Crazy World Cup Bets

Gambling is great fun and something we all love to indulge in – whether we be serious online slots players, hardcore horseracing punters or simply love playing the lottery every week. There is however a limit to what most of us are willing to a) bet on and b) how much money we will place on that bet. Some people obviously have more money than sense, or have such blinkered fate in their team that they place extortionate bets, the likes of which most of us would never consider, not even in our wildest dreams! The World Cup has brought some of these crazy gamblers to the fore:

The biggest world cup bet ever gambled on the England team was placed by a William Hill customer, a man who scarily is not an Englishman himself! He placed a bet of £150,000 in a London William Hill betting shop at odds of 6/1. If he had been successful he would have been a very happy chappy with a profit of £900,000. Alas it was not to be, but William Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe did assume that he was a Wayne Rooney fan as he waited until he had been confirmed for the squad before he placed his bet.

Another big time gambler placed a bet that Italy would beat the USA. Unlike you and me who might go so crazy as to gamble a couple of hundred pounds if we were fully convinced of the outcome (or huge Italy fans) this man went a few steps further than that and staked £400,000. Again it wasn’t patriotism that drove him to this measure, he was a Swiss businessman and at odds of 2/5 he stood to make a profit of £160,000. Unfortunately for him it was a 1-1 draw.

Graham Sharpe of William Hill bookmakers admitted that it was a bold gamble that the Swiss man had taken and with a string of World Cup favourites having won, the bookies themselves were resigned to defeat when Italy went a goal ahead. However when the USA equalised everything changed and the draw resulted in some £2 million to them, making it one of the best World Cup results ever!

The final example we have of a huge bet going wrong on the World Cup (but we’re sure there’s more out there!) was a British gambler who, again betting with William Hill (on their telephone betting service) placed a £417,000 wager on Germany to beat Spain in the semi-final at odds of 10/11. If they had done the punter would have walked away with just under £800,000. Graham Sharp stated before the match that if Germany did win it would be a disaster as the nation had received a huge backing, including a £67,000 bet prior to the championship at odds of 14/1. So there is no doubt that it wasn’t just our British gambler with his £417,000 bet that went into a bit of tizzy when Germany were denied their late penalty!